"He had a Navajo Squaw weaving blankets"
"But the main drawin' card he had was the mummy which he sed he dug up somewheres out here in the Grand Cañon. He had all sorts of certificates and letters to prove its genuineness, as well as photographs taken when they dug it up in the cave.
"One day a odd-lookin' four-eyed feller comes along, and he ses to Pick, 'Mought I inspect this mummy of your'n?' and Pick he ses, 'Shore, pardner, jist as much as you like. You come round to-morrow mornin' fore the show begins and I'll be glad to have you look the gent over.'
"The old boy ses he'll shore be on hand, for he's powerful interested in them prehistoric things out West. So that evening, after the show closed, Pick ses to me, 'Jackson, you git a screwdriver and take them screws outen the lower lid of that there mummy case.' So I loosens up the screws, and havin' nothin' particular to do, I takes off the lid to get a better look at his Nibs. I ain't never seen a mummy before, an' was sort of curious to know what a shore enuff mummy did look like. He was naked down to his waist, and the skin was as dry and leathery as an old cowhide that's been laying out in the weather for ten years. His eyes were shut tight and his teeth showed through his thin lips with a grin that give me a cold chill for a month afterwards. But, say, boys, talk about a surprise. One look was all I wanted to show me that this here mummy ofold Pick's was nothin' else but the remains of old Ah Yen, the Chink what died in Williams and was stole out of the joss house. Then I remembered the reward offered for it, but old Pick were too square a feller to soak that-a-way. I never said nothin' to nobody about what I'd seen, but slipped the lid back on the case and went off to bed in the other tent.
"Long about midnight I was woke up by somebody a hollerin' fire, and when I busted out of the tent the whole row of shacks was a blazin'. Our big tent was too far gone to save anything, but we drug out our beds and what little baggage we had in the small tent and did well to git that much out. Inside an hour there wasn't nothin' left but a pile of ashes to show where the whole outfit stood.
"Old man Pick, he took on considerable, but 'twan't no use cryin' over spilt milk, an' so we hit the trail for Arizony an' a little sunshine."
"But how did Pickerell git holt of that there Chink's body?" asked Morris, who had listened with amazement at the story.
Jackson grinned as he slowly knocked the ashes from his pipe. "It sort of hacked the old man when he found I was wise to his little game with the Chink," he said. "Over in Albuquerque he met up with a feller who was a-goin' down into Central America on a sort of bug huntin' expedition and he talked Pick into goin' with him. The night before we split at Albuquerque he gits fuller than a goat, an' seein' as how he wasn't comin' back to these parts agin, he give me a great old confidential an' tole me how he turned the trick.
"I disremember all that Pickerell done tole me of the way the job was worked," continued Jackson, "but, howsomever, the day the Chink died the one-lunged doctor was in town. Pickerell he's been a tellin' him about the mummies they occasionally found out in them cliff dwellers' ruins in the cañon, and when the Doc meets Pick hangin' about town that afternoon he suggests carryin' off the Chink's body and makin' a mummy out of it. That hits Pick all right and he didn't let no grass grow under his feet gittin' ready to do it.
"The night of the body snatchin', he gits up about midnight, slips uptown, finds the door of the joss house open and no one watchin' it. Hurryin' back to his cabin, he saddles up one mule and slaps a packsaddle on the other, an' an hour later drifted out of town with a pack on his mule lookin' for all the world like a long roll of bedding. By noon the next day he reached his den in the cañon, where he and the doctor went to work, and between 'em did a mighty good job of embalmin', endin' it all up with a three months' smokin' of the body with green cedar wood.
"Pick ses that then come the tickledest part of the hull job, fer whilst he's got a mummy all right, he's got to git it sort of discovered like to make it of any scientific value, an' he studies the matter aplenty. He knows a bunch of fellers what was a-coming out to the Grand Cañon from the East to poke about an' try an' discover prehistoric things, and he knows them's the very chaps to help him out. So when they shows up he tells 'em sort of accidental like that he knows where they's a bunch ofthem there clift dwellings what nobody'd ever yit seen, and they grabs at his bait like hungry trout. They just can't skeercely wait to git out there, and Pick ses the rest were plumb easy, for the whole place looked like it had never been disturbed before, and when they digs out the mummy all buried in the dirt and rubbish in one of the cliff dwellings, the thing was done.
"Them fellers jist nachelly never suspicioned a thing and was perfectly willin' to sign a statement testifyin' to the genuineness of the mummy. Then they took photographs of the cliff dwellings and the mummy as it lay in the room, and all the surroundin's, with all these here scientific chaps a-standin' around, which clinched the thing. Pick ses he'll take the mummy fer his share, and he gits the fellers to take it on east with their plunder when they goes, so no one won't never suspicion him and connect him up with the deal."
"I reckon you and him would have been chasin' 'bout the country back thar to this very yit, if the fire hadn't cleaned up the outfit, wouldn't you?" inquired Russel.
"Sure," replied the ex-showman; "we was makin' all kinds of money at it and makin' of it easier than I ever did in all my life before. But, say, when it comes to makin' mummies, old Pickerell and that there one-lung doctor had 'em old Pharaoh fellers beaten a whole mile."
"He knows where there's a bunch of them there Cliff dwellings"
It certainly seemed good to be back on the old range again after a six months' absence. As we "topped" the last hill I pulled up the team. Down in the Valley below us the white adobe walls of the ranch house, like some desert light house, blazed through the glorious green of the cottonwoods that hovered about it. To its right a brown circle marked the big stockade corral. A smooth mirror-like spot out in the flat in front of the house was the stock-watering reservoir, into which the windmill, seconded by an asthmatic little gas engine, pumped water from the depths. Above it the galvanized iron sails of the great mill glittered and flickered and winked in the bright sunlight as if to welcome us home. A cloud of dust stringing off into the distance marked the trail where a bunch of "broom tails" were scurrying out onto the range after filling themselves at the tank with water and salt.
Suddenly, a gleam of color caught our eyes. It was "Old Glory" at the top of the tall pole, stirred by a little gust of wind that shook out its folds, the green of the trees making a splendid background. Evidently the boys were expecting us, for the flag was only run up on holidays, Sundays, and when guests were due to arrive.
A soft hand slipped quietly into mine. "Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home," she sang, and as the words of the homesick, world-tired Payne came from her lips, there came into my throat a great lump, my eyes filled with tears, and to us both, the sage brush plain shimmering and baking in the bright Arizona sunshine, those brown rugged mountains in the distance and that desert oasis in the foreground were by far the loveliest thing we had seen in all our travels. The team, too, seemed to sense our feelings, for they freshened up and took us across the intervening distance as if they had not already made a good forty miles from the railroad.
Old Dad, the ranch cook, was at the "snorting post" to greet us as we pulled up, and we soon were sitting on the broad veranda plying the old rascal with questions about the work, the men, and all the happenings while we had been away; for of all forlorn, unsatisfactory things on earth the worst are the letters written by the average cow-puncher ranch foreman concerning matters upon which his absent boss has requested full and frequent information.
One of the first anxious inquiries on the part of the madam was as to the whereabouts of her Boston terrier, a bench show prize winner sent out to her shortly before we left. The letter accompanying the dog advised us that, barring accidents, the animal should in a few months bring into the world some offspring, which, considering its parentage, ought to bring fancy prices on the dog market.
"Where's Beauty?" she asked.
"I reckon she done went off with the boys this morning. They's down to Walnut Spring, buildin' a new corral."
"But didn't she—er—hasn't she—" She looked at me appealingly.
"Where are her pups?" was my blunt inquiry.
"Them pups?" The old man took his pipe from his jaws. A queer look flashed across his brown face; he chuckled as if the words brought up some rather amusing recollection. Now, old Dad was one of the worst practical jokers in the West. Nor did he count the cost or think of the results as long as he could carry his point, and fool some one with one of his wildly improbable yarns. To "pick a load" into some innocent tenderfoot was his most joyous occupation. I waited patiently for him to recover from the fit of mirth into which my innocent question seemed to have plunged him. There was a look of extreme disgust on the face of the lady sitting nearby.
"Ye 'member that there young kid-like chap what drifted in here last spring after the steer gatherin'?" Again that witless chuckle.
Yes, I remembered. We both did—the madam nodded.
"Well, along about the time them there pups came into this here state of Arizony"—the madam's face lighted; there were some pups after all—"the kid and I was here at the ranch all alone, the whole outfit bein' out on therodeo, an' we havin' been left behind to watch the pasture fence, where a bunch of yearlin's was bein' weaned. One mornin' the kid busted into the kitchen. 'The mut's got four purps! Come an' look at em; they's all de-formed!' ses he, almost breathless with the news."
(Business of surprise and horror on part of listening lady.)
"'De-formed?'" ses I.
"'That's what I sed,' he snaps back at me."
(More business of S. and H. on part of lady; also friend husband.)
"I follers the kid out to the shed back of the house, where the dog had a pile of ole saddle blankets for a bed, and sure enough she had four white faced brindle purps all right, whinin' an' sniffin' just as purps allers does.
"'What's wrong with 'em?' says I, me not seein' anything de-formed about 'em.
"'Hell' ses he, 'can't you see they's all de-formed?'
"'Search me,' ses I, lookin' 'em all over carefully.
"The kid picked up two of 'em. 'Lookit them tails then.' He turned one of 'em around. Now Beauty ain't got no great shakes of a tail herself, but what she has is straight. 'By Heck!' ses I, seein' a chanst to have some fun with him, 'sure enough, they is sort of de-formed in their little olecolas. Reckon they's no use botherin' to raise 'em, is they—what with their tails all as crooked as a gimlet. Too bad, too bad,' ses I, 'fer the missus will be monstrously disapp'inted over it.'
"'They's every dad burned one of 'em got a watch eye too, jist like that there ole Pinto hoss I rides.' The kid's sure worried.
"'Wuss an' more of it,' I comes back at him.
"'What we goin' to do with 'em?' droppin' the animiles back into the blankets.
"'Nothin', I reckon,' lookin' straight down my nose, 'less'n we drownds 'em—said job not bein' one I'm actually hankerin' fer.'"
"The galvanized iron sails of the windmill flashed in the sunlight"
(Business of fury, anger and indignation, with signs of approaching tears on part of listening lady.)
"You blithering old idiot!" I shrieked, "do you mean to say that you loaded the kid with that sort of a story till he went off and drowned those valuable pups under the mistaken impression that they were deformed and therefore worthless?" I glared at him as if to wither his old carcass with one look. (More of above mentioned business by lady—with real tears.)
"Well"—and the old renegade emitted that infernal chuckle again—"well, how should I sense that he didn't savvy that crooked tails and a glass eye were sure enough signs of birth an' breedin' with them there Boston terriers?" He looked away; we felt sure he dared not face the wrath in both our eyes.
I stormed up and down the porch for a few moments, speechless. The lady was registering every known phase of indignation. Her voice, however, was silent. Evidently there are times in her life when words fail her. This was one of them.
"Where's that kid?" I finally demanded. "I want to have a little heart to heart talk with thathombre! As for you"—and I tried to look the indignation I knew the madam felt—"it seems to me your fondness for picking loads into idiots green enough to be fooled by such a gabbling old ass as you are has gone just about far enough. After I've seen the kid, I'll talk to you further."
Old Dad was slowly and carefully reloading his pipe. From his shirt pocket he dug a match. With most aggravating deliberation he struck it on the door-post against whichhe leaned, held it over the bowl, gave several long pulls at the pipe to assure himself it was well lit before he even deigned to raise his keen gray eyes to mine. The madam's face was a study in expression. "Where's the kid?" I really thought he had not heard my first inquiry as to the whereabouts of that individual.
"Where's he at?" with the grandest look of innocent inquiry on his weather beaten face that could possibly be imagined. For mere facial expression he should be a star performer in some big movie company.
"Yes!" I snapped out the words as if to annihilate him. "I want to hold sweet converse with him,muy pronto, sabe?"
"Well, he'svamosed—drifted yonderly" and he waved his pipe towards the eastern horizon.
"Ahead of the sheriff?" I never did have much faith in the young gentleman from Missouri.
"Yep—in a way he was." Once more that devilish chuckle.
I saw the old man evidently had a story concealed about his person and that, with his usual contrariness the more we crowded him the longer he would be in getting it out of his system. I dropped angrily into the porch swing, where I could watch his face, while the madam sat herself down on the steps of the porch apparently utterly oblivious of everything but the sage-dotted prairie spread out before us. Finally the aged provision spoiler began to emit words.
"The last time the outfit shipped steers over at the railroad," he said slowly, "the kid he tanked up pretty consid'able till he's a feeling his oats, an' imaginin' hisself a reg'lar wild man from Borneo, and everything leading upto his gittin' into trouble before he was many hours older. Comes trotting down the sidewalk old man Kates, the Justice of the Peace who, on account of his gittin' the fees in all cases brought up before him, was allers on the lookout for biz. Also he done set into a poker game the night before and lose his whole pile, which didn't tend to make him view this here world through no very rosy specs. The kid comes swaggering along and the two meets up jist in front of the 'Bucket of Blood' saloon. You know Kates he allers wears a plug hat, one of them there old timers of the vintage of '73 or thereabouts, an' the kid he bein' a comparative stranger in these parts, and not knowin' who the judge was nor havin' seen any such headgear for some time, he ses to hisself, 'Right here's where I gits action on thatsombrero grande,' and he manages to bump into the judge in such a way as to knock off the tile, and before it hits the ground the kid was filling it so full of holes that it looked like some black colander.
"Every one came pouring out of the saloon and nearby stores to see what was up, and the judge he takes advantage of the kid's having to stop and reload his six pistol, to relieve hisself of some of the most expressive and profane language ever heard in the burg before or since, windin' up by informin' the gent from ole Missou that he was goin' straight to his office and swear out a warrant for him and send him down to Yuma by the next train.
"When the boys tells the kid who he's been tamperin' with he gits onto his hoss and tears outa town like hell a-beatin' tanbark, he havin' no particular likin' for court proceedin's, owing to several little happenin's in that linedown on the Pecos in Texas. About a week later the sheriff he gits a tip that the kid's probably hangin' out at Deafy Morris's sheep camp up on Wild Cat, so he saunters up that a-way and nabs the young gent as he's a helpin' Deafy fix up his shearin' pens. Sheriff he sort of throws a skeer into the kid, tellin' him Kates is liable to send him up for ten years for assaultin' the honor and dignity of a J. P., but the kid's mighty foxy and also plumb sober by that time, and he tells the sheriff he's willing to go back to town and take his medicine.
"Next morning Deafy he ses as how he's a-goin' down to town, and the sheriff, havin' got track of somebody else he's a wantin' up on the mountain, and believin' the kid's story about bein' willing to go to town, he deputizes Deafy to take him in and deliver him at the 'Hoosgow.'[D]
[D]Jusgado—The prisoner's dock in a Spanish criminal court.
[D]Jusgado—The prisoner's dock in a Spanish criminal court.
"Deafy he tells the sheriff he's not a goin' clean through to town that day, but is a-goin' to camp at the Jacob's Well, a place about half way down, on the edge of the pines, where he's arranged to meet up with the camp rustler of one of his bands of sheep grazin' in that section. Ever been at that there Jacob's Well?" And the old man looked at me inquiringly. I nodded affirmatively.
The Jacob's Well was located in the center of a very large level mass of sandstone covering perhaps three or four acres, with a dense thicket of cedar and piñon trees all about it. It was a fairly round hole about five feet wide and perhaps ten deep, bored down into the sandstone formation either by human agency or some peculiar action of nature. The lay of the rocks all about it was such asto form a regular watershed, so that the natural drainage from the rain and snow kept it nearly filled almost all the year round.
Just what made this well was a moot question in the country. A scientific investigator promptly put it down to the action of hard flint rocks lying in a small depression and rolled about by the wind until they dug a little basin in the rock, then the water collecting in it continued the attrition until, finally, after what may have been ages, the well was the result. My private opinion was that it was the work of prehistoric or even modern Indians who, wishing to secure a supply of water at this particular point, possibly for hunting purposes, formed the hole by fire. A large fire was built upon the rock, then when at a white heat water was thrown upon it, causing the stone to flake and crack so it could easily be removed. This was a slow process, of course, but having myself once seen a party of Apache squaws by the same primitive means remove over half of a huge boulder that lay directly in the line of an irrigating ditch they were digging, and which they otherwise could not get around, I am convinced the scientific person missed the true methods employed to excavate the hole.
However, without regard to its origin, the well was a fine camping place, for water was scarce in that region and there was always good grass for the horses near it. The old man rambled on.
"Deafy he gits a poor start next mornin' 'count of a pack mule what insisted on buckin' the pack off a couple of times and scatterin' the load rather promisc'ous-like overthe landscape, an' by the time they reached the well it was plumb dark. They unsaddles and hobbles their hosses out, and then Deafy he sets to work buildin' a fire, tellin' the kid to take his saddle rope and the coffee pot and git some water. The kid he's never been there afore, but Deafy tells him the well's only about a hundred feet from where they unpacked, so he moseys out into the dark lookin' for the well, his rope in one hand, the camp coffee pot in 'tother, the idee bein' to let the pot down into the well with the rope.
"It were sure dark in them trees, and the kid he's a blunderin' and stumblin' along, a-cursin' the world by sections, when all to once he stepped off into fresh air, and the next thing he knows he's a standin' at the bottom of the well in about four or five feet of ice-cold water, and him a-still hangin' onto the rope and pot with a death grip. Took him about five minutes to git his breath and realize he done found the well all rightee, and then he sets up a squall like a trapped wildcat. He ain't forgot, neither, that Deafy ain't likely to hear him, the ole man bein' deafer than a rock; so after hollerin' a while and gittin' no results he stops it and begins cussin' jist to relieve his mind and help keep him from shakin' all his teeth outen his head account o' shiverin' so blamed hard.
"Up on top Deafy he's busy startin' a fire and openin' up the packs gittin' ready to cook supper. The kid not bein' back with the water yit, and he bein' obliged to have water fer bread makin' purposes, Deafy finally decides the kid's gone and got hisself lost out there in the dark, and so he takes apasearout that a-way huntin' fer him. Theole man's a hollerin' and a trompin' through the cedars an' rocks, thinkin' more how much his wool's a-goin' to fetch than anything else, when he thinks he hears someone a-callin'. He turns to listen, gits a little more sound in his ears, takes a step or two in its direction, and, kerslop, he's into that there well hole, square on top of the young gent from 'ole Missou'. Say, the things them two fellers sed to each other, an' both at the same time, most cracked the walls of the hole."
Dad wiped his eyes with the heel of his fat hand.
"Talk about your Kilkenny cats," he continued, "they wan't in it with them two pore devils down in that cold water. Finally, they both run out of mouth ammunition an' set to work to figger out how they was goin' to git outen the well. It was too wide to climb out of by puttin' a foot on each side and coonin' up the walls like a straddle bug, an' it was mostly too deep for either of 'em to reach the top with their hands. So they mighty soon agrees between 'em that there's but one way to git out, an' that's fer one of 'em to stand on 'tother's shoulder so's to git a grip on the edge, pull hisself out, an' then help his shiverin', shakin'amigowhat's down in the hole onto terry firmy. Bein' a foot taller than Deafy, Bob agrees that the old man can climb onto his shoulders an' git out first. But Deafy, he's heavy on his feet, an' bein' sixty years old an' none too spry, he cain't seem to make the riffle to git onto the kid's back, so he finally gives it up, an' lets the kid have a try at it. The kid he's soon on Deafy's shoulders, an' one jump an' he's on top.
"Meantime the kid he's been doin' some powerful hardthinkin'. He ain't hankerin' after a close-up view of that there indignant judge down in town. The sheep man he's got a monstrous fine hoss, a new Heiser saddle, an' a jim dandy pack mule and outfit, while his own hoss an' saddle ain't nothin' much to brag on. He knows the sheep man's dead safe where he's at till some one comes to help him out, which will be when his camp rustler arrives on the scene, which may be in an hour an' may be in ten minutes. Meantime, bein' a cow-puncher bred and born on the Pecos, he ain't lovin' a sheep person any too well, so he makes up his mind he jist as well die for an 'ole sheep as a lamb, and within ten minutes he's hittin' the trail for New Mexico a straddle of Deafy's hoss an' saddle, leadin' his pack mule, with a bully good pack rig onto his back.
"Also the pore old feller down in the well is a holdin' up his hands expectin' every minute the kid will reach down an' help him out; incidentally, as far as his chatterin' teeth will let him, doin' some mighty fancy cussin' along broad an' liberal lines."
Dad stopped a moment to light his pipe. My curiosity could wait no longer.
"What happened to Deafy and how did he get out?" burst from my eager lips.
Once again that chuckle. "Seems he tole the camp rustler to meet him there that night, but thepaisanowas late gittin' his sheep bedded down on account of a bear skeerin' of 'em just about sundown, so he didn't git round till the kid had done been gone for two hours. Even then he might not 'a' found him, for the fire was all out an' it was too dark to see much, but the ole man he had his sixshooter with him when he started in to bathe, also about forty beans in his catridge belt. Knowin' mighty well his only hope was in drawin' some one's attention with his shootin', he was mighty economical with his beans, only shootin' about onc't every five minutes. The herder he hears him, runs the sound down, an' finds his ole boss a soakin' in the well, him bein' jist about ready to cash in his chips, he's that numbed and chilled."
"And the kid?" gasped the lady listener.
"Oh, he done got clean away over the line into New Mexico and they ain't never got no track of him to this very yit."
We heard a raucous squeak from the corral back of the house, indicating the opening of one of the heavy pole gates. Evidently the boys had come in. I was just rising from my seat in the swing, when from around the corner of the house dashed a brindle Boston terrier, followed by four crazy pups about two months old. The mother barked a joyous welcome to the madam, to whom she flew and in whose arms she found a warm reception. I turned to the cook. That same aggravating chuckle again.
"But you told us they were drowned" was the only thing the amazed and perplexed woman could find words to utter.
The old reprobate was gazing into the bowl of his pipe as if in its depths he had found something extremely interesting. I began to see a light.
"You miserable old hot air artist!" I said. "You picked a load into us the very first hour after we landed on the ranch, didn't you? You've been humbugging usall this time, haven't you?" I tried hard to be fiercely indignant.
"You fooled your own selves," he snickered, "fer I never tole you them there pups was drownded; you jist nachelly jumped at it of your own accord, an' seein' as how you'd find it out anyhow when the boys came in, I jist let it run along."
By permissionOverland Monthly, San Francisco, Calif.
When the stockholders of the "Lazy H" outfit met annually in solemn conclave to receive the report of their range manager and find out how much more the expenses for the year had been than the receipts, they called it the "Montezuma Cattle Company," but as their brand was an H lying down on the sides of their cattle thus, (H) everyone on the range called it the "Lazy H" outfit.
We were in the Lazy H winter horse camp looking after a hundred and seventy-five cow-ponies that had seen a hard summer's work, and the job was a snap. Two men rode out every morning and saw that none of the animals strayed too far, bringing them all in for water down the trail in the cañon, salting them once a week, and keeping a sharp lookout for horse thieves, both white and Indian.
The camp was a dugout in the side of a hill, part logs, part hill, with a dirt roof a foot thick. A grand fireplace in one end served alike for heating and cooking purposes, and at night with a fire of pine knots you could lie in the "double decker" bunks and read as if the place was lighted with an arc lamp. There was a heavy door in the end,while half a dozen loopholes cut in the logs served for windows and for defense if necessary.
Two of the boys were playing a solemn game of "seven-up" to decide which of them should build the fire in the morning, and the balance were smoking or reading some two-weeks-old newspapers that had come out from town with the last load of grub.
Outside the wind was whistling around the corner, and the coyotes, attracted by the scent of a freshly killed yearling hanging in a cedar near the dugout, were howling and shrieking like a lot of school-children at play.
"Just about such a night outside as the night old man Hart's wife and kids got lost two years ago," remarked Peg Leg Russel, who was busy with leather strings and an awl plaiting a fancy quirt.
"Didn't you help hunt for 'em?" queried a voice from one of the bunks.
"Sure thing I did," answered the quirt maker, "and, what's more," he continued, "I hope I never get another such job as long as I live."
"Tell us about it Peg Leg. You know I was over in Kansas looking after a bunch of company steers that fall and never did get the straight of it." The speaker turned from his game of solitaire toward the one-legged cow-puncher. With his knife Russel clipped the end of a leather string from the finished "Turk's head," laid the quirt on the floor and rolled it back and forth under the sole of his boot to give it the proper "set" and finish, finally hanging it on the wall. Then he filled and lighted his pipe, and after a few preliminary puffs, began his story.
"We was camped over in the petrified forest"
"Well, boys, that was one of the toughest nights I've seen in Arizony. We was camped up near the 'Peterified' Forest on our way back to the headquarter ranch. We'd been down to the railroad with a bunch of steers, and expected to bust the outfit up for the winter when we got back to the ranch. It were late in November, an' you all know how everlastin' cold it gits 'long in November an' December.
"Well, 'long comes one of them tearin' howlin' sandstorms 'bout two o'clock in the afternoon, and the wagon boss camped us under the lee of a hill and wouldn't go any furder. And 'twas well he did, too, fer the wind blowed a gale, snow begin to fall, and ag'in sunset it was as ornery a piece of weather as I ever seen anywheres. You all know wood's pow'ful skeerce up thar, too, and all the cook had was sage brush an' 'chips.'
"We put in a mis'able night. The wind blowed every way, an' drifted sand an' snow into our beds in spite of all a feller could do. Me and Sandy, the horse-wrangler, slep' together, an' Sandy he lowed, he did, that the Lord mus' have it in fer us pore ignorant cow-punchers that night, shore. About daylight I heard a shot, then another, an' another. Everybody 'most in camp waked up, an' Wilson, the wagon boss, he takes his six-shooter an' fires a few shots to answer 'em.
"We all speculated as to what it meant at such a time, an' Wilson he says he'd bet a yearlin' ag'in a sack of terbaccer that it were some derned tenderfoot bug-hunter who'd been out to the Petrified Forest an' gone an' lost hisself, an' now was a bellerin' around like a dogie calf.The cook he lowed 'twan't no bug-hunter, 'cause that was the crack of a forty-five, an' them bug-hunter fellers ginerally packed a little short twenty-two to stand off the Injuns, an' we all laughed at this, fer the night we got the steers shipped the cook went up town an' got full as a goat, an' tried to run a 'sandy' over a meek-looking tenderfoot, who wan't a harmin' nobody; but he wan't near so meek as he looked, an' fust thing thecocineroknowed he war a gazin' in to one of them same little twenty-twos, an' I'm blessed if the stranger didn't take his forty-five away from him an' turned him over to the sheriff to cool off—but I guess you all know about that.
"We could soon hear the 'chug chug' of a pony's feet, an' then a voice a hollerin'. We all gave a yell, and in a few minutes a man named Hart rode into camp. We all knowed him. He was a sheep man with a ranch over on the 'tother side of the Petrified Forest. He was nearly froze an' half crazy with excitment, an' 'twas some minutes afore we could git him to tell what was a hurtin' him.
"'Boys,' he says, 'for God's sake git up an' help me find my wife an' chillun.'
"An' then he told us he had been away from his ranch all the day before, at one of his sheep camps over on the Milky Holler. When he left in the mornin' his wife tole him she'd hitch up the hosses to the buckboard after dinner an' take the kids an' drive down to the railroad station an' git the mail, an' git back in time for supper. You know it's 'bout eight miles down to the station at Carrizo.
"Comin' home at night in the wust of the storm, Hart had found the shack empty, his wife not home yit an' thehosses gone. Thinkin' that the storm had kept 'em, he waited an hour or two, when he got so blamed oneasy he couldn't wait no longer, but saddled up his hoss an' drug it for the station. When he got there they told him his wife had left 'bout an hour by sun, an' they hadn't seen nothin' of her sence, although they had begged her not to start back, an' the wind a-blowin' like it was. 'Twas then about as dark as the inside of a cow, and leavin' the men at the station to foller him, Hart struck out across the prairie, ridin' in big circles, and tryin', but without no luck, to cut some 'sign' of the buckboard and hosses. You know, fellers, how them sandy mesas are about there, and, between the driftin' sand and the snow, every mark had been wiped out slick and clean. Then he pulled his freight for the ranch, thinkin' mebbeso she'd got back while he were away; but nary a sign of them was there about the place. He struck out agin, makin' big circles, and firin' his six-shooter and hollerin' like an Apache Injin, all the time a-listenin' an' a-prayin' fer some answer. Then he heerd our shots and thought sure he'd found her, fer she always carried a gun when she went out alone, and he jist hit the high places till he ran onto our camp and he war sure disappointed when he seen us an' not her.
"'Tain't no use for to tell you that we got a move onto ourselves. You've all seen the Cimarron Kid git a move on an' tear round and just bust hisself to get out to the herd in the mornin' to relieve the last guard, along in the fall when the boss was pickin' out men for the winter work. Well, that was the way we all tore round, an' as everybody kep' up a night hoss (you all know what a crank that fellerWilson was 'bout night hosses; he'd make every man keep one up if he had the whole cavyyard in a ten-acre field), we soon had a cup of coffee into us an' was ready to ride slantin'. Pore Hart was so nigh crazy that he couldn't say nothin', an' 'twas hard to see a big, strong feller as he was all broke up like.
"By this time 'twas gettin' daylight in the east an' we struck out, scatterin' every way, but keepin' in sight an' hearin' of each other. 'Bout two miles from camp I ran slap dab onto the buckboard, with one of the hosses tied up to the wheel, an' 'tother gone. The harness of the other hoss laid on the ground, an' from the sign, she had evidently unharnessed the gentlest hoss of the two, an' got on him, with the kids, an' tried to ride him bareback. I fired a couple of shots, which brought some of the other boys to me, an' we follered up the trail, step by step, 'cause 'twas a hard trail to pick out, owin', as I said, to the sand an' snow.
"Pretty soon we come to where she had got off the hoss an' led him for a ways; then we found the tracks of the kids; an' we judged they'd all got so cold they had to walk to git warm; an' all that time my fingers an' ears was tinglin' an achin', they was so cold, an' what was them pore kids an' that little woman goin' to do, when a big, stout puncher like me was shiverin' an' shakin' like a old cow under a cedar in a norther?
"Bimeby we struck the hoss standin' there all humped up with the cold, the reins hooked over a little sage bush. I sent one of the boys back with the hoss, an' tole him to hitch up to the buckboard an' foller on, fer I knowed shorewe'd need it to put their pore frozen bodies on when we found 'em.
"Here we saw signs where she'd tried to build a fire, but, Lord A'mighty, you know how hard it is to find anything to burn round that there Petrified Forest country, an' she only had three or four matches, an' nothin' to make a fire catch with. Then she started on ag'in, an' I judged she'd got a star to go by, 'cause she kep' almost straight north to'ds the railroad. By the trail, she was a-carryin' the youngest kid, a boy 'bout two years old, an' leadin' the other, which was a little gal 'bout five.
"Right here, fellers, she showed she was fit to be the wife of a man livin' in such a country. She knowed mighty well that she'd be follered, an' that her trail would be hard to find, so what does she do but tear pieces out of the gingham skirt she had on, an' hang 'em along on a sage brush here, an' a Spanish bayonet there, so's we could foller faster. When we struck this sign an' seed what sh'd done, one of the boys says, says he, 'Fellers, ain't she a trump, an' no mistake?' An' so she shore was.
"We jist turned our hosses loose along here, an' one of us would lope ahead an' cut for sign, an' as soon as he found it, another would cut in ahead of him, an' in that way we trailed her up, right peart. We soon ran the trail down to the edge of the big mesa back of the Carrizo station.
"If you remember, it's quite a cliff there, mebbeso two hundred feet down; sort of in steps, from two to six feet high. We seen where she jumped over the fust ledge an' helped the young ones down. She worked her way down therocky cliff that way, step by step, an' it must 'a' been a job, too, in the dark, an' as cold as she was. Two of us went on down the cliff, an' I sent the other boys around with the hosses, to a break, where there was a good trail.
"Right here I began to think that p'raps she's been saved, after all. 'Twas only a mile from the foot of the mesa to the station at Carrizo, an' in plain sight from where we were.
"Me an' Little Bob, who was with me, was so sure that she was all right that we quit follerin' the trail an' jist got down the cliff anywhere we could. When we got to the bottom an' clear of the rocks, we set out to cut for her trail ag'in, when Little Bob says, says he, 'There she is, Jack.'
"Lord, how my heart jumped into my mouth. Seemed as if I could most taste it. I looks where Bob was a-p'intin', and shore enough, there she were a-sittin' on a rock with the little boy in her lap, an' the little girl a-leanin' up ag'in her an' a-lookin' into her face.
"We both gave a yell an' started to'ds her, but she never paid no 'tention to us, which seemed to me mighty queer like. But we were a little to one side of her, an' I thought mebbe she were so tired she didn't notice us. Bob he got up to her fust, an' walked up an' put his hand on her shoulder to shake her, but, fellers, you all know how 'twas, the pore little woman an' the two young ones were dead.
"Little Bob was so skeert that he couldn't do nothin', but I fired all the shots in my six-shooter, an' the balance of the outfit soon came up to us.
"Wilson he had a little more savvy than the rest of us,an' rode back an' met pore Hart, who had got off to one side, an' tells him sort o' kindly like, what we'd found; an' I reckon that Jim never had no harder job in all his life.
"Hart says, says he, 'Jim, old man, you take 'em inter town as tenderly as you kin, an' make all the arrangements for the funeral, an' I'll follow you in tonight.'
"'Course Jim swore we'd all do everything we could, an' Hart rode off to'ds his ranch without comin' nigh the place where his little family was a restin' so peaceful an' quiet.
"Say, fellers, that was the pitifullest sight I ever seed, an' I've seed some sad work in the days when old Geronimo an' his murderin' gang of government pets used to range all over the country.
"'Twas easy enuff to read the whole thing now. She'd come to the edge of the mesa an' seen the lights in the station house, for they get up 'bout four o'clock every mornin' to get breakfast for the section men. Climbin' down the cliff had used her up, an' knowin' she was so clost to help, she had set down on a big flat rock at the bottom to rest a minute before starting to walk the mile from the foot of the mesa to the station. To set down, as cold and tired as she was, meant sleep, an' to sleep was shore death that night, an' she went to sleep an' never woke up no more.
"The little boy was cuddled up ag'in her under her shawl, with the peacefullest look on his little face you ever see, an' the little girl was a-leanin' on her lap an' a-lookin' up into her face, with the big tears frozen on her cheeks, an' so natural that it was hard to believe she was dead.
"One of the boys went over to the station an' got twowagon sheets and some blankets, an' when the buckboard came we rolled 'em up as carefully an' softly as we could. They was so stiff we had to leave the little feller where he was, but the girl we rolled up separate.
"Now, say, boys, that was a hard thing to do, for a bunch of rough cow-punchers, if you hear me. Hookey Jim he'd been through a yellow fever year down in Memphis once, an' he was more used to such things, so he sort of bossed the job.
"I ain't ashamed to say I bawled like a baby, fellers. Mrs. Hart was awful good to us boys, even if her husband was a sheep man. No puncher ever went there without gettin' a good square meal, no matter when it was; an' when Curly Joe got sick over at the 'Rail N' ranch, she jist made the boys fetch him over to her place, an' she nussed him like his own mammy would have done.
"After we got 'em packed on the buckboard, Wilson sent the rest of the outfit back to camp, an' him an' me rode on into town, leavin' Shorty French to drive the team in. We met everybody in town out on the road to hunt for Mrs. Hart, for the word had got round that she had got lost; an' everyone that could leave had turned out on the search.
"'Twas a sorrowful place that day, an' the next. Everybody in town knew an' loved the little woman, an' her awful death made it seem more pitiful an' sad. They made one coffin an' put her an' the two chillun into it, one on each arm, an' they looked so sweet an' peaceful, like they was only asleep—an', anyway, that's what he read from the book at the grave—that they was only asleep.
"You fellers all know how everybody in town was at the funeral, an' how one of the men in town had to say a little prayer at the grave, 'cause there wasn't no parson, they all bein' away off in Afriky an' Chiney a-prayin' an' a-singin' with niggers an' Chinees, an' not havin' no time to tend to their own kind of people to home, who p'raps needed prayin' for jist as much as the heathen in Chiney.
"Then two sweet little girls sung a hymn 'bout 'Nearer my God to Thee,' an' when they got to the second verse everybody was a-cryin' an' the little girls jist busted out too, an' couldn't finish the song for a long time.
"An', boys, that's about all there is to tell."
I glanced around the dugout. The fire had burned low and I guess the most of them were glad; for, in the uncertain light, I could see moisture on more than one sunburned cowboy cheek, and my own eyes were, as one of them quaintly put it, "jist a-spillin' clean over with tears."